Toy backhoe



July 23, 1968 B. E. BALTHAZOR TOY BACKHOE 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed April 29, 1966 INVENTOR.

B. E.BALTHAZOR July 23, 1968 B. E. BALTHAZOR TOY BACKHOE 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed April 29, 1966 FIG. 2

INVENTOR. B. E. BALTHAZOR United States Patent 3,393,469 TOY BACKHOE Bernard E. Balthazor, Moline, Ill., assignor to Buddy L C0rp., East Moline, 11]., a corporation of Delaware Filed Apr. 29, 1966, Ser. No. 546,260 7 Claims. (Cl. 46-40) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A toy backhoe mountable on a support, including a boom vertically swingable between a releasably locked first position and a free second position so that the dipper stick is swingable in two phases, in one of which it is movable while the boom is immobilized and in the other of which the boom and dipper stick are extendible and retractible to enable the bucket on the dipper stick to become loaded and unloaded.

This invention relates to a toy backhoe and has for its principal object the provision of a novel and simplified toy that substantially reproduces the basic structure and functions of commercially known, full-scale backhoes.

In a typical full-scale backhoe, the boom and dipperstick are moved by the selective operation of a pair of fluid motors, one between the tractor-mounted support and the boom and the other between the boom and dipperstick, whereby the boom motor may be hydraulically locked to immobilize the boom while the dipperstick motor may be extended and retracted to raise and lower the dipperstick and its bucket between loading and dumping positions. When both motors are operated simultaneously or sequentially, the boom and dipperstick may be extended to reaching position, enabling the bucket to reach outwardly and/ or downwardly to begin to accumulate a load as the boom and dipperstick are retracted by reversing action of the motors. In a toy, the swingability of the boom and dipperstick may be easily duplicated but it is virtually impossible to reproduce the dual motor control without reliance upon costly and complicated controls, which, economically, must be mechanical rather than hydraulic. As a practical matter, a control that functions with but one control lever or its equivalent is most desirable, but a problem arises in adapting such control to all movements of the boom and dipperstick together or the dipperstick relative to the boom as where the boom is immobilized. US. Patent No. 3,205,612 to Zbikowski offers one solution by way of a control linkage including a track on the boom and a follower on the linkage which rides the track in part of its movement and escapes and returns to the track in another phase of its travel.

The present invention olfers another solution and overcomes the prior art problems and otherwise attains acceptable design features by an arrangement including releasable means responsive to operation of, but structurally independent of, the control means and adapted to selectively immobilize or release the boom so as to enable operation of the control means in two phases to obtain two different actions of the dipperstick. The means is readily releasable and engageable by the same control means without resort to complicated tracks and guides. The invention features such releasable means responsive to forces applied by forward and reverse movements of the control means. More specifically, the releasable means comprises cooperative detent elements between the boom and boom support, forcibly engageable and disengageable by transferring the manual force applied to the control means selectively to the boom, engaging the detent elements upon movement of the control means through a predetermined range in one direction and causing release of said elements upon reverse movement of the control means through the opposite phase of the predetermined range.

Further objects and features will become apparent as a preferred embodiment of the invention is disclosed, by Way of example, in the ensuing description and accompanying sheets of drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is an elevation, partly in section and with parts omitted, of the improved structure, showing the boom immobilized and illustrating the relative swingability of the dipperstick;

FIG. 2 is a similar view, on a smaller scale, showing in full lines the extended relation of the boom and dipperstick and in dot-dash lines the relationship of the components as they are retracted;

FIG. 3 is a similar view showing the dipperstick substantially fully retracted and the boom about to become releasably locked to the support;

FIG. 4 is an enlarged fragmentary view showing more clearly the conditions of the detent elements in that phase of the operation illustrated in FIG. 4; and

FIG. 5 is an enlarged section as seen along the line 55 of FIG. 1.

The backhoe is here shown as being associated with a toy tractor, the body of which appears at 10 and one rear wheel of which is shown at 12. Rigidly attached to the body 10 is a bracket 14 to which a boom support 16 is pivoted by a vertical pin 18 for lateral swinging as is conventional. This support is U-shaped as seen in plan (FIG. 5) and has opposite upright fore-and-aft side walls 20 between which the forward or inner end 22 of a boom 24 is received. The expressions front, rear, etc. are used as terms of general application and should not be construed as limiting the invention.

The boom is preferably in the form of an inverted channel having opposite sides and a rear or remote end 26. These ends are sometimes hereinafter referred to as a first end 26 and second end 22. The boom end 22 is connected to the support 16 by pivot means such as a transverse horizontal pin 28 carried by the Walls 20. A parallel pin 30 connects the boom end 26 to the upper or inner end of a dipperstick 32 which carries a bucket 34 at its lower end. The bucket swings a horizontal pivot 36 between two positions established by stops 38 and 40, according to its loaded or empty centers of gravity as is conventional. Compare the loading and digging positions of FIG. 2 (stop 40 engages boom) with the dumping position in dot-dash lines in FIG. 1 (stop 38 engages boom).

The support walls 20 carry a second pivot pin 42 parallel to the pin 28 and on which is mounted the lower end of a control lever 44 which projects through a fore-and-aft slot 46 formed in the top wall of the boom 24 and having front and rear ends 48 and 50 which serve as stops to limitfore-and-aft swinging of the lever to a predetermined range. As best seen in FIG. 5, the lever is preferably of U section for added strength. A link 52 is pivoted at one end at 54 to the lever 44 and at its other end at 56 to the dipperstick just below the pivot 30 (FIG. 1). An upper portion of the link 52 at its rear end is notched at 58 to accommodate the pivot pin 30 when the dipperstick is fully extended (FIG. 2, full lines).

The lever 44 and link 52 afford control means or linkage by means of which the various movements of the boom and dipperstick may be manually attained by the user. When the boom is freely pivotal on the support about the pin 28, the lever may be swung back and forth to extend the structure between its maximum reach position (full lines, FIG. 2) to substantially its fully retracted position (FIG. 3), it being clear that the bucket begins to load at maximum reach and becomes fully loaded as the bucket is dragged back through or over the ground to the FIG. 3 position.

It is at this point that a control problem is manifested; i.e., if the control means is reversed (moved to the rear) from the FIG. 3 position without more, the dipperstick and boom will be simply re-extended. The boom must be held generally upright or in an up position as seen in FIG. 1 (full lines), so that reversal of the control means can swing the dipperstick and bucket to elevated or dumping position (FIG. 1, dot-dash lines). Such means is afforded by the present invention in the form of releasable means denoted generally by the numeral 60. This means is locked in FIGS. 1 and 5, released in FIG. 2 and about to lock in FIGS. 3 and 4.

The release means embodiment shown here comprises two axially opposed pairs of cooperative detent elements, one element of each pair being a recess 62 in a support wall and another of each pair being a projection or dimple 64 in a side of the boom end 22. These elements are forcibly engageable and disengageable, operating by friction and the relative yieldability of the support walls 20, which are preferably of sheet metal. This release means is so related to the control means that movement of the control lever in one direction, e.g., forwardly, transfers manual force to the boom, causing the detent elements to interengage; i.e., they will snap in from the condition of FIGS. 3 and 4 to that of FIGS. 1 and 5. When the lever is moved a predetermined distance in the reverse direction, the manual force transferred to the boom causes the elements to release. To facilitate this result while still retaining fore-and-aft movement of the lever 44, the stops afforded by the ends 48 and 50 of the slot 46 in the top of the boom come into play, the lever engaging the front stop 48 to cause the detent elements to engage (FIG. 4) and engaging the rear stop 50 to release said elements when the dipperstick attains its maximum elevated position (dot-dash lines, FIG. 1). When the detent elements are released, the lever may be swung back and forth to extend and retract the dipperstick between the FIG. 2 full-line position and the FIG. 3 position; i.e., as long as the lever is not moved forwardly beyond the FIG. 3 position, the boom remains freely pivotal on the support 16, and the dipperstick may be extended and retracted to heap in material toward the tractor through the arc permitted by the lateral swingability afforded by the vertical pin 18. Once the detent elements are locked, they will support the boom in its up position (FIG. 1) and the dipperstick may be elevated and lowered and, of course, the boom and dipperstick as a unit may swing about the vertical pivot 18. A significant feature of the present structure is that the detent means locks the boom in a relatively high position, enabling a comparably high lift for the dipperstick and bucket so as to dump into substantially high hauling vehicles. The arrangement is further simple and easy to use, since it requires no special manipulation, particularly since it avoids complicated cooperation between the control linkage and boom. For the same reasons, the structure lends itself to low-cost manufacture, since complex tolerance problems are eliminated.

Features and advantages other than those enumerated will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art, as will many modifications of the preferred embodiment disclosed, all without departure from the spirit and scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:

1. A toy backhoe comprising a support, a boom having inner and outer ends and pivoted at its inner end to the support on a horizontal axis for swinging through an angular range including a first position in which the boom extends upwardly and outwardly to dispose its outer end at a relatively high level and a second position in which the boom is extended outwardly to dispose its outer end remotely from the support and at a substantially lower level, releasable detent means directly and automatically engageable between the support and boom upon forcible swinging of the boom to said first position to immobilize the boom in said first position and automatically releasable upon forcible movement of the boom out of said first position to free the boom for swinging back and forth through the remainder of its range, a dipperstick having an outer end including a bucket and an inner end pivoted to the outer end of the boom on an axis paralleling the aforesaid axis for swinging of the dipperstick relative to the boom in any part of said range, and single control means connected directly between the support and the dipperstick independently of the boom and separate from the releasable means and operative selectively back and forth in a first phase, while the boom is immobilized in said first position, to raise and lower the dipperstick and operative selectively in a second phase, while the boom is released, to move in one direction to cause the boom and dipperstick to operate conjointly to extend the dipperstick to a reaching position preparatory to loading the bucket and to move in the opposite direction to retract the dipperstick and to swing the boom upwardly toward its first position for dragging the bucket over the ground, said boom being further swingable to said first position to again become immobilized by said releasable means so as to free the control means for operation again in its first phase.

2. The invention defined in claim 1, in which the releasable means is frictionally engageable and disengageable by manual force, and the control means is manually operative and is so constructed that upon predetermined movement thereof in said opposite direction it transfers a manual force to the boom and causes the releasable means to engage between the boom and the support and upon predetermined movement in said one direction, after said releasable means is engaged, transfers a manual opposite force to the boom and causes said releasable means to release.

3. The invention defined in claim 1 in which the control means includes a swingable lever carried by the support and the boom has a pair of spaced stops selectively engageable by the lever to apply force to the boom in one direction to cause engagement of the detent means and in the other direction to effect release of said detent means.

4. The invention defined in claim 3, in which the boom has an elongated slot therein through which the lever extends and the stops are effected by opposite ends of said slot.

5. The invention defined in claim 3, in which the lever is swingable about a pivot spaced to one side of the boomto-support pivot means and the detent elements are disposed to the opposite side of said pivot means.

6. The invention defined in claim 1, in which: the support has a pair of spaced apart upright walls, the boom second end is disposed between said walls, and the releasable means includes cooperative detent elements engage able upon said predetermined upward movement of said boom and forcibly releasable upon manual force applied to the boom in the opposite direction, at least one of said elements being provided on one of the support walls and a cooperative element being provided on the boom.

7. The invention defined in claim 6, in which: each wall has a detent element and each side of the boom has a cooperative element.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 562,926 6/ 1896 Sharpington 30612 1,379,205 5/1921 Ogden 306-l2 XR 3,205,612 9/1965 Zbikowski 4640 LOUIS G. MANCENE, Primary Examiner.

S. NATTER, Assistant Examiner. 

